Theos-Talk Archives (September 2004 Message tt00298)

Sept 7 '04

Thanks brother P,

"Self-knowledge is the longest journey to the nearest place."

A great phrase -- succinct and true.

The so-called "lost soul" is only one so immersed in Kama that it finds
itself doubting and wondering if there is any truth, any real morality in
the world. 

For the moment its view is limited to the horizons of this incarnation and
its inevitable useless end in death -- as a mere "personality." 

The important thing to take note of is that there are "entities" [Black
Magicians, etc.] who are very much interested in creating more "lost souls"
and impeding the progress of those who begin to search for meaning.

If they can cause them to falter on their "path:- of independent research
into the possibility of TRUTH, then they secure another adherent and the
present personality may be fatally "infected." 

The inquirer who is aspiring to KNOWLEDGE and to TRUTH has to make himself
invulnerable to all "influences save his own HIGHER SELF. 

That is why THEOSOPHY emphasizes at the outset:


1	UNIVERSAL SPIRIT

"Space is the real world, while our world is an artificial one. It is the
One Unity throughout its infinitude: in its bottomless depths as on its
illusive surface; a surface studded with countless phenomenal Universes,
systems and mirage-like worlds. Nevertheless, to the Eastern Occultist, who
is an objective Idealist at the bottom, in the real world, which is a Unity
of Forces, there is "a connection of all matter in the plenum," as Leibnitz
would say. This is symbolized in the Pythagorean Triangle. " [ S D I 615]


2	Universal "matter" -- [as the uncountable and totally inclusive
MONADS and the MONADIC ESSENCE. Its highest aspect may be said t be
Mula-prakriti, or Maha-Buddhi -- the Root primordial Matter that has
purified itself and is able to enshrine the ATMA - just as in the Gayatri
verse, it has made itself into the "vase" wherein shines the eternal LIGHT. 
The Great Mahatmas belong to this category of Beings. They are "incarnate
truth," Their duty is: assisting all to advance when they (the monadic
pilgrims) decide to do so. This is the trial of "free-will." Free-will
comes directly from the ONE CONSCIOUSNESS and that is the ABSOLUTE. 

[ Occult Science teaches that "Mother" lies stretched in infinity (during
Pralaya) as the great Deep, the "dry Waters of Space," according to the
quaint expression in the Catechism, and becomes wet only after the
separation and the moving over its face of Narayana, the "Spirit which is
invisible Flame, which never burns, but sets on fire all that it touches,
and gives it life and generation." * And now Science tells us that "the
first-born element . . . most nearly allied to protyle" . . . would be
"hydrogen . . . which for some time would be the only existing form of
matter" in the Universe. What says Old Science? It answers: just so; but we
would call hydrogen and oxygen (which instills the fire of life into the
"Mother" by incubation) in the pregenetic and even pre-geological ages—the
Spirit, the noumenon of that which becomes in its grossest form oxygen and
hydrogen and nitrogen on Earth—nitrogen being of no divine origin, but
merely an earth-born cement to unite other gases and fluids, and serve as a
sponge to carry in itself the breath of LIFE—pure air. † Before these gases
and fluids become what they are in our atmosphere, they are interstellar
Ether; still earlier and on a deeper plane—something else, and so on in
infinitum. The eminent and learned gentleman must pardon an Occultist for
quoting him at such length; but such is the penalty of a Fellow of the Royal
Society who approaches so near the precincts of the Sacred Adytum of Occult
mysteries as virtually to overstep the forbidden boundaries. "	S D I
625-6]


3	KARMA --justice, equity for all, is ever active and adjusts good and
bad eternally. It is in effect as far as we are able to discern the
ORIGINAL CAUSELESS CAUSE. Its constant action bridges all periods of
unconsciousness and Pralaya. It reanimates (when the TIME is right), all
beings and returns them to the position they have to occupy t retain the
eternal balance and harmony of NATURE. It is an intimate part of the
ABSOLUTE. It causes the eternal reappearance of SPIRIT / MATTER and
Evolution for all MONADS.

"Shekinah-Sakti is feminine. As such she becomes the Duad of Pythagoras, the
two straight lines of the symbol that can never meet, which therefore form
no geometrical figure and are the symbol of matter. Out of this Duad, when
united in one basic line of the triangle on the lower plane (the upper
Triangle of the Sephirothal Tree), emerge the Elohim, or Deity in Cosmic
Nature, with the true Kabalists the lowest designation, translated in the
Bible "God" (see the same work and page).* Out of these issue the
Scintillas. 

The Scintillas are the "Souls," and these Souls appear in the three-fold
form of Monads (units), atoms and gods—according to our teaching. "Every
atom becomes a visible complex unit (a molecule), and once attracted into
the sphere of terrestrial activity, the Monadic Essence, passing through the
mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, becomes man." (Esot. Catechism.) 

Again, "God, Monad, and Atom are the correspondences of Spirit, Mind, and
Body (Atma, Manas and Sthula Sarira) in man." 

In their septenary aggregation they are the "Heavenly Man" (see Kabala for
the latter term); thus, terrestrial man is the provisional reflection of the
Heavenly. . . . . "The Monads (Jivas) are the Souls of the Atoms, both are
the fabric in which the Chohans (Dhyanis, gods) cloth themselves when a form
is needed." (Esot. Cat.)" [S D I 618-9]


4	UNIVERSAL EVOLUTION -- from the ignorance of the monadic units which
have just emerged as entities -- as "beings --whether men or in other
kingdoms -- from the universal MONADIC ESSENCE to the wisest and most
ancient of MAHATMAS. 



"However varying in their external presentations and dogmas, beliefs in the
Hosts of invisible Intelligences of various grades have all the same
foundation. Truth and error are mixed in all. The exact extent, depth,
breadth, and length of the mysteries of Nature are to be found only in
Eastern esoteric sciences. So vast and so profound are these that hardly a
few, a very few of the highest Initiates—those whose very existence is known
but to a small number of Adepts—are capable of assimilating the knowledge.
Yet it is all there, and one by one facts and processes in Nature's
workshops are permitted to find their way into the exact Sciences, while
mysterious help is given to rare individuals in unravelling its arcana. It
is at the close of great Cycles, in connection with racial development, that
such events generally take place. We are at the very close of the cycle of
5,000 years of the present Aryan Kaliyuga; and between this time and 1897
there will be a large rent made in the Veil of Nature, and materialistic
science will receive a death-blow. "
[ S D I 611-12 ]


"But what say the Occult Sciences to this, and what do they add? 

They say that what is called collectively Monads by Leibnitz—roughly viewed,
and leaving every subdivision out of calculation, for the present †—[† These
three "rough divisions" correspond to spirit, mind (or soul), and body, in
the human constitution.] may be separated into three distinct Hosts, which,
counted from the highest planes, are, firstly, "gods," or conscious,
spiritual Egos; the intelligent architects, who work after the plan in the
Divine Mind. 

Then come the Elementals, or Monads, who form collectively and unconsciously
the grand Universal Mirrors of everything connected with their respective
realms. 

Lastly, the atoms, or material molecules, which are informed in their turn
by their apperceptive monads, just as every cell in a human body is so
informed. (See the closing pages of Book I.) 

There are shoals of such informed atoms which, in their turn, inform the
molecules; an infinitude of monads, or Elementals proper, and countless
spiritual Forces—Monadless, for they are pure incorporealities, ‡ except
under certain laws, when they assume a form—not necessarily human. Whence
the substance that clothes them—the apparent organism they evolve around
their centres? 

The Formless ("Arupa") Radiations, existing in the harmony of Universal
Will, and being what we term the collective or the aggregate of Cosmic Will
on the plane of the subjective Universe, unite together an infinitude of
monads—each the mirror of its own Universe—and thus 

individualize for the time being an independent mind, omniscient and
universal; and by the same process of magnetic aggregation they create for
themselves objective, visible bodies, out of the interstellar atoms. 

For atoms and Monads, associated or dissociated, simple or complex, are,
from the moment of the first differentiation, but the principles, corporeal,
psychic and Spiritual, of the "Gods,"—themselves the Radiations of
primordial nature. 

Thus, to the eye of the Seer, the higher Planetary Powers appear under two
aspects: the subjective—as influences, and the objective—as mystic FORMS,
which, under Karmic law, become a Presence, Spirit and Matter being One, as
repeatedly stated. 

Spirit is matter on the seventh plane; matter is Spirit—on the lowest point
of its cyclic activity; and both—are MAYA. 

Atoms are called "Vibrations" in Occultism; also "Sound"—collectively. "
[ S D I 632-3 ]


And, what is our position? It (the embodied brain-mind or Lower manas) has
lost sight for the moment of its own immortality, and of reincarnation under
Karma. 

”Space is the real world, while our world is an artificial one. It is the
One Unity throughout its infinitude: in its bottomless depths as on its
illusive surface; a surface studded with countless phenomenal Universes,
systems and mirage-like worlds. Nevertheless, to the Eastern Occultist, who
is an objective Idealist at the bottom, in the real world, which is a Unity
of Forces, there is "a connection of all matter in the plenum," as Leibnitz
would say. This is symbolized in the Pythagorean Triangle." [ S D I 615
]


Dallas
 

-----Original Message-----
From: prmo
Sent: Tuesday, September 07, 2004 5:35 AM
To: 
Subject: Re: A single question to Dallas

--- , "W.Dallas TenBroeck" <dalval14@e...> wrote:

THEOSOPHY has taught me to understand "myself." I do not mean the 
embodied Lower mind -- Kama-Manas, but within and above, superior to that is
the immortal SELF -- the ATMA and its companion --Wisdom or Buddhi. 
That is: the Higher Mind (Buddhi-Manas).
 
Nothing else matters.

---------------------------------------------------

Dear Dallas:

Thank you so much for taking the trouble to reply. Your reply made me 
remember that, while in India, in the early 1990s, I came across this 
statement of the then Shankaracharya of Kancheepuram, deeply steeped 
into Advaita Vedanta:

"Self-knowledge is the longest journey to the nearest place."

If you can call a lost soul a brother then perhaps there is still 
hope for the world.

With warmest good wishes and gratitude,

Pedro